england pressing, but feel pretty good about my u2.5 (that I was too lazy to go bet this morning ; otoh, I got to lay in bed for quite some time, so that was nice. This is karma for getting insanely lucky i wasn't able to bet GER in any capacity)

if the soccer players actually found their balls and acted like men instead of little crybabys, I might be able to watch more than just the world cup. But the amount of acting in some games is just ******ed.

How long are you in Vegas?

yes

Til tomorrow, then back Thursday night (for one night). I'm gonna be around the V all afternoon (grabbing lunch with J now), and then hitting up Nobu tonight and taking J to see the Bellagio fountains. If you want to hit up Nobu, let me know, or if you want to swing by the V, I have a ton of drink coupons from my degen WC betting. You've got my cell # I think.

Then I'll be back for Jul 3-4 at least.

England played so so bad. They tried to piss the ball over the goal line rather than testing the Algerian keeper (who played well).

I don't understand why he has to take off his shirt to slap the guy

i've seen us go out of major tournaments on penalties on five separate occasions and i've never been as depressed as i am now. the sad thing is our destiny is in our own hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X6VoFBCE9k

my contribution to this is that I'm wearing an England football shirt.
.............
I don't like football.
Good excuse to trot off to the pub and get jolly though

From what I was able to understand from various commentary on tv today, people in Argentina still don't know why it didn't count. Is that the general consensus still elsewhere? Oh, and apparently they don't understand why some American dude got a yellow card either. Or more accurately, they think that the Americans don't know why they got a yellow card. Whatever.

And Argentina is the only team with 2 wins so far? Weird.

The (admittedly biased) commentary here is pretty much "WTF"

Ref is being crucified -- even more so for hiding behind the "i dont need to explain what the foul is or who it's on" FIFA policy.

The English guy on commentary pointed out that the ref sucked the whole game, and a lot of calls (including the non-sending-off of Dempsey early on) were really questionable.

whatever. the england/alg tie makes this sort of moot. Plus it's not even clear yet whether it's better to win the group or finish 2nd, given the upset of Germany by Serbia.

I know its used in men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, field hockey and ice hockey. And collegiate American soccer. Basically any sport that has a goal and assist category that I have come across has it.

I've always wondered if, the way when soccer players fall to the ground they immediately grab their face, do they actually secretly have a big grin on their face that they are trying to cover up? I think if a guy falls down and covers his face, he should be sent off immediately. Unless he actually got hit in the face.

So I gather it's pretty well conceded that the referee in the World Cup match being discussed herein did a pretty poor job, not just with one call but in general.

Serious question for soccer fans: Is this common in high-level play? My experience with major sports in the States is that, while blown calls obviously happen, it is incredibly rare for there to be a legitimate complaint that a referee is genuinely poor in the big four sports in general, and I can't ever remember it happening in a super bowl, world series, or Stanley cup final. (Basketball refereeing is so subjective and so generally crooked that I'm not really counting it, as it's hard to know what the refs are actually supposed to be doing, enforcing the rules as written or coddling the home team+superstars.)

This reminds me: Has diving in soccer been a quasi-accepted part of the game forever? IN practice, is anything ever done about it? (I'll bet there are penalties for it, but if they're never enforced then who cares.) I've seen so many youtube-type videos of ridiculous dives that I conclude it's just considered standard; not true?

I know in hockey there is a penalty for diving, but I've never seen it called; on the other hand, diving isn't nearly as common in hockey.

Technically you can get a yellow card, but, like you said, its never enforced. As far as I can tell, the diving is part of the game.

I almost never watch hockey but I'm certain that I've seen penalties given for diving, or at least one specific example sticks in my mind. Someone was lightly cross-checked (or poked it some similar fashion; hard to recall the exact manner that he was struck) and he went flying to the ground and got 2 minutes for it. It really stuck in my mind because I was impressed that a ref would have the confidence to make a call like that on something that to me didn't even look obvious in slow-motion, much less live.

When I was in middle school I was playing basketball once and some kid on defense would put both hands on my back and lean into me with his full weight, even while I was running back and forth across the court. In hindsight I should have just asked the ref to watch what was happening but my solution at the time was to just start falling down. Problem went away real fast...

I've seen diving called in hockey.

Same game that I saw a quadruple shorthanded goal.
5 on 3, chicago guy broke his stick, st louis pulled the goalie, so 6 on 2.

Oh, and to continue what you had actually said about basketball: it's ridiculous what the players get away with. I mean if you're on a breakaway, dribbling is entirely optional. 4 steps for a dunk? Ship it! My dad basically ingrained it in my head that the NBA sucks to watch because the rules aren't enforced at all, and I never found a reason to disagree with him. When you're a little kid playing in games where the refs actually call stuff (fouls and traveling), it's really a completely different game. And each level that you move up/get older, it just gets more and more lax. It's just really hard to take a sport seriously when the rules aren't enforced.

It doesn't surprise me that it's at least sometimes called in hockey. (btw, for the brits: when Americans say just "hockey" they always mean ice hockey; I've learned from TL that this isn't obvious from outside.) But it's certainly not common. But then, in hockey there aren't many penalties called for light contact, except kinds of contact that are simply never allowed (stick to the face and such).

I think the problem, to the extent one thinks this is a problem, is when the rule prohibits or permits certain kinds of contact based on the severity. If a minor push is not an infraction but a push that causes someone to lose his balance is a penalty, then people will fake losing their balance unless there's a serious disincentive to doing it, which would happen in soccer if they chose to enforce the diving penalty but otherwise won't.

See this is why everyone should like golf.

People often call in to complain when they see a rules violation occur and the officials actually review the footage and enforce a penalty. This happens a lot.

I wonder how many points per game actual enforcement of the rules would cost the superstars in basketball? Michael Jordan probably never made it to the rim once in his entire career without traveling; Patrick Ewing apparently had a "bunny hop" step that he could never break himself of which essentially could have obviated every shot he ever took if it had been called. I'm sure the league encourages this because they think that ans want to see great players and great performances, but that plus the general unsavory character of most basketball players has caused me completely to lose interest in the game.

There are rules in golf? Why?

Count your strokes — how hard is that?

When there comes a time where people roam free and think that they're better than everyone else and pokes their noses into other people's threads and business, that day is the day that I no longer wish to be in the community.